We checked the weather forecast this morning and it said rain at first, some sun later. Well it was raining first thing and as the morning wore on it stopped and the sun even shone. Great, lets get going. The plan was to get to Clifton Cruisers, wind, and come back all in the day. As soon as we slipped our mooring it started to rain again and it rained for some considerable time. The idea of todays journey was to test out my modification to one of our windlasses, so we needed some locks to try it out on, but not too many and this trip fitted the bill as it was a "there and back in a day" trip. The lock windlass was designed to combine a long handle for more leverage on heavy paddlegear and a short handle for more speed on lighter work or were room is restricted by a balance beam for example. Of course there is a down side to this but it's only minor and it's that it is now slightly heavier to carry. Hey ho!
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| It looks a bit odd with a bit on the side, but it works. |
Brilliant - pleased with that.
Having tested it out on all six locks (they're duplex) at Hillmorton, the windlass was declared a success and we wended our way back to last nights mooring with best haste, arriving just before dark.
While cruising back, Lin was cooking tea and I can't tell you how welcome it is to come in after a hard days cruising to a warm cabin and the smell of turkey and veg warming on the hob and it tasted even more delicious than it did on Christmas Day.
Back to Wigrams tomorrow.
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2 comments:
That's a neat idea!
Hi Tom and Jan,
We found many paddlegear mechanisms were becoming heavy or tight so I bought two long handled windlasses and found they were too long so I did a cut and shut to make them shorter. Now they are an ideal length, but still too long for some situations. It's a pain having to carry two windlasses with you to operate the locks, so I cannibalised another windlass and devised what you see in the picture. And it works!
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